We fell into putting more into our house build than initially thought (not entirely our fault since materials went up way way more than average inflation).
Right now I estimate our taxable account will run out of money in 2 years at age 53/54. Our house would be completely done by then (better be!) and would be worth about 8 years living expenses but I don't know if we should try and tap into that somehow or do a 72t?
I also could scrape a year or so of living expenses by withdrawing Roth contributions from past years (that is tax and penalty free). Selling a few items that we no longer need or we used building the house could gain another year.
How bad is a 72t? The big issue for me is it is taxable income you can't control, for things like ACA subsidy...once you start, you have to take it each year or face a severe penalty...even if some circumstance change and you don't need or want to take it.
You can size the IRA account you take the 72t to meet your income needs.
Also, the calculators like
https://www.bankrate.com/retirement/calculators/72-t-distribution-calculator/ have defaults that are close to the maximum.
You can size the "reasonable interest rate" to further adjust your withdrawal.
Once you start, you have to take the same amount out for the amortization or annutization method.
If that doesn't work for you, you can change to the RMD method once and stay there, which requires yearly recalcuation of amounts, but is typically a lower withdrawal amount.
The 72t is mostly a tIRA (not 401k) strategy, especially for those not under the "rule of 55" for 401k, and people like me who FIRED before 55 and the 401k plan (not law) only allows TOTAL distributions.
as MoseyingAlong noted and I implied above, and stated in my prior post, you don't have to take the maximum allowed.
Question for
@Roland of Gilead. Is your tax-deferred (tIRA, 401k etc) enough to support you from 53 to the end? Running out of taxable seems scary. A 72t could help you extend your taxable (flexible) income.
I was wondering what the PTF people were looking for after all the prior answers posted, but I guess I answered my own question; more questions, more examples, more answers.